Contrary to what I predicted in my last story, Carti actually dropped “I AM MUSIC” (or just “MUSIC,” for some reason) on the 14th. In that story, I channeled my inner Doctor Strange by predicting two different timelines; one where Carti drops, and one where he doesn’t.
Somehow, though, the fact that the album could totally suck was kind of an afterthought to me. I mean, when I mentioned it at the end of the story it was totally a joke.
Sure, the timeline where Carti didn’t drop would have sucked, but at least we would have been used to that kind of disappointment. The third, unmentioned timeline where Carti actually does drop and it totally sucks? That would actually be the worst one.
Guess what happened.
Look, no matter the quality of the album, people were going to be dissapointed. There’s no feasible way to produce any product capable of satisfying everyone’s hopes and expectations that have been formed over four years, but I was prepared for this.
Carti fans call it the “Whole Lotta Red (WLR) Effect.” Basically, when WLR first dropped, everyone hated it because their expectations were so high. But as time went on, people eased up on the album and were able to appreciate it for what it was instead of whether or not it lived up to its hype. However, this is not the case for MUSIC for one simple reason:
WLR was actually good.
Maybe that’s a little harsh. Or maybe not. But there’s only one way to find out.
Let’s get into it.
Easily one of the most hated tracks when the album first dropped. It’s really not that great, but I guess it has some value purely as a mosh pit song. I don’t understand why it can’t be a good mosh pit song and just a good song in general, but honestly that’s the least of my concerns when listening to this album. It’s really hard to describe, the majority of the track is just… noise. I think the best way to describe it is to imagine one of those movie scenes where the parents ask their emo teenage son or daughter what they’re always listening to on “those darned headphones of theirs,” and then after convincing them to unplug their headphones so they can listen to it, the song is just yelling on a crappy heavy techno beat. Then the parents are like “woah, who would have expected that from you?!” and a laugh track plays. Maybe that makes literally no sense at all to most of you, but I guarantee there’s at least one person out there who knows how accurate that is. POP OUT sucks, and is a pretty poor introduction to the rest of the album. 3/10
CRUSH is everything POP OUT wishes it were. A quieter, actually thought out song that really should’ve been the first track. My only main problem is that the song feels like it’s building up to a beat drop or shift that never happens, which leaves it feeling kind of empty. Plus the Travis Scott feature feels almost nonexistent due to the overly simple lyrics and heavier emphasis on the beat (which is pretty good, but like, so is Travis Scott??). CRUSH screams “unfinished” like a lot of songs in this album, and I just wish that its potential was explored more. 6/10
K POP is like junk food. It has uninspired lyrics that I can barely even hear (which have always been quirks of Carti, but have really dropped in quality here), a simple, mediocre beat and, like most of the slop on this album, a short run time of 1:53. But I can’t pretend that the production isn’t much higher than something like POP OUT, and it’s just catchy. Not good catchy, but more like “I heard this song on TikTok and removed it from my playlist after listening to it more than three times” kind of catchy. 6.5/10
Imagine K POP on crack and you have EVIL J0RDAN. A heavier emphasis on lyrics and a catchy beat changes this song from junk food to… well, good junk food. Y’know, the difference between Sun Chips with Mellow Yellow and Doritos with Mountain Dew. The stupid gun sound effect at the beat drop is the perfect balance between corny and badass, and overall I can’t hate this song, even though the leaked, unfinished version will always be superior in my eyes. 8/10
Kendrick, shut up PLEASE. I’ve always loved surprise features, but when the artist is revealed right at the beginning of the song by speaking like a robot, I lose interest fast. I’m not on the Kendrick hate train that everyone hopped on right as Not Like Us was overplayed to death, but this ain’t it chief. The rest of the song is perfectly middle of the road, but we’re now at two features with crazy missed potential. 5/10
As if the album heard me talking smack about its features, here we have a great redemption from Travis with his feature on PHILLY. Definitely my favorite song so far, even if it is carried by Travis immensely. Carti’s verses are fine but Travis pushed this to being the only song on this album I’ve actually added to my playlist so far. 7.5/10
I have never heard a song get sabotaged so much by a producer tag. Whoever this “Swamp Izzo” guy is, he needs to chill the hell out. He was a little annoying on CRUSH and some other songs, but here it’s just obnoxious. When he’s not begging for attention though, I actually like this song a lot. This would actually be higher than PHILLY for me (and actually added to my playlist) if Swamp Izzo had just chilled out a bit. 6.5/10, and maybe a 7.5/10 if someone goes in and gets rid of those producer tags. Seriously, it sucks.
Everyone knows The Weeknd can do no wrong, and this feature is no exception. Make no mistakes, this is a fantastic song. It’s not even carried by The Weeknd, as Carti actually locked in for the incredible beat and delivered a great performance. If this was on Whole Lotta Red or Die Lit everyone would go nuts over it, but unfortunately it’s perception is forever tainted just by being in MUSIC. 9/10, you should actually listen to this one.
You know it’s gonna be good when I have to censor the title for my advisor. Seriously though, this is a pretty good song. Nothing crazy, but good enough for me to add to my playlist, so take that as you will. The beat does this weird thing where it feels like it’s running along like normal, then stumbles and loses its balance before running again. I know this is probably a terrible description, but if you listen to the song you’ll know what I mean. 7/10
BACKD00R (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
Three good songs in a row?! I can’t believe it! BACKD00R is pretty decent, although nothing crazy at all. Some solid verses from both Carti and Kendrick, who has redeemed his credibility through this feature. Completely inoffensive and fine, really nothing more or less. 7/10
I feel the exact same way I do with TOXIC as I do with BACKD00R; it’s fine. Another pretty mellow beat here with a completely neutral feature that doesn’t really add or take away anything. These songs aren’t bad at all, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not really the kind of thing I can give above (or below, for that matter) a 7/10 without being unreasonable. So… yeah. 7/10 it is.
Finally something more interesting. MUNYUN isn’t better than BACKD00R or TOXIC per say, in fact, it’s much worse. BUT… uhhh, yeah, it’s just kinda below average. The only offensively bad thing about it is Swamp Izzo’s return to sabotaging good songs with his abundance of adlibs, but honestly even without them this song just feels like it’s going through an identity crisis. Like it can’t decide between being intense and fast like the beat or slower and more mellow like the lyrics and their delivery. 5/10
I feel like I’m saying this way too much throughout the album, but CRANK is just kind of a better version of MUNYUN. Still an average song, but with more identity and better execution than CRANK. Also an abundance of Swamp Izzo adlibs just like CRANK, which is kind of weird. It’s like Carti made a bunch of prototypes for the songs on this album before making the final versions, then decided to include them just for the hell of it. 5.5/10
CHARGE DEM H*ES A FEE (with Future & Travis Scott)
We’re going on the safe side with censoring Carti’s favorite gardening tool in the title. Anyway, this song is actually good! I mean, it has Future and Travis on it, so I’d be concerned if it somehow sucked. My only real complaints are that I think it goes on a little too long and, like the past few songs on this album, doesn’t really leave much of an impact, but I like the beat, obviously the features, and unlike the past few songs it’s not suffering from an identity crisis. 7/10
GOOD CREDIT (with Kendrick Lamar)
Y’know, I was gonna say the exact same thing I’ve said for the past few songs; that this is kinda just above average, but the second half of the song with the Kendrick feature really elevates it for me. Still the same feel as the past few songs, but with extra great execution. This is also the song where that “Carti my evil twin” line from Kendrick comes in, but it wasn’t nearly as corny as I thought it was going to be. He says it twice and then the song moves one, and if you haven’t seen everyone making fun of it online I bet you wouldn’t have even remembered that it was in the song. 7/10
What kind of stupid as hell title is this? Also you can’t really copy and paste titles from Spotify on an iPad to a Google Doc, which is why I want you to know I spent my time counting the amount of “E’s” in the title to make sure my version had the same amount: six. Anyway, this song is pretty good, just like every single other track here, more or less. The beat is nice, Swamp Izzo isn’t here which is always good, and… uh, I’m really struggling to find new things to say here. If you liked the album up to here you’ll like this one too. It’s hard reviewing basically the same song 30 times in a row, okay (although I do like how this track manages to be consistently decent instead of half-good half-bad like the rest, so it gets an extra half-point)? 7.5/10
WAKE UP F1THLY (with Travis Scott)
Here we have something more interesting, even beyond the Travis feature. I really like the beat here, and even though Carti isn’t as locked in as he was with The Weeknd on RATHER LIE as Travis definitely carries the track a little, WAKE UP F1THLY still manages to be just as decent as every other track here. 7/10
We’re not at TWIN TRIM yet so Uzi hasn’t saved the album just yet, but this track is pretty good. If you’re as bored as I am listening to all of these tracks just to say the same thing about each one, go ahead and count how many times I say “pretty good” throughout the story. This one actually surpasses the 7/10 mark because of how well Uzi and Carti work together, although the track really drags around the mid to end point which is why it isn’t any higher. Don’t worry, though. Uzi will be back with one of the best tracks on the album, just have some patience. 7.5/10
Thank you for saving me Future. This track is more than just “pretty good,” it’s actually… almost great. Like RADAR on steroids, Swamp Izzo almost completely ruins this track for me with his dozens of adlibs. Also like RADAR, I’ll give this one two scores based on how I would feel about it if Swamp Izzo didn’t come into the studio. 7.5/10 with him, 8/10 without.
As the title suggests, this track is kind of crazy, and I love it for that. Well, maybe not for that specifically, but for being different from the rest of the album. Even when taken away from the context of the rest of the album, I still think this song is good. Still nothing overly special which is why it’s just out of the range of that extra half-point, but decent enough. 7/10
WE NEED ALL DA VIBES (with Young Thug & Ty Dolla $ign)
This song is good as hell! Seriously! Not only a super refreshing break from the similar-sounding decency of the majority of tracks here, but really, really good by its own merit. Carti is barely here, but with two features in an average-length song I can understand. This is up there with RATHER LIE for me, seriously listen to this one too. 9/10
Aaaaaaand we’re back to mediocrity. Honestly this one doesn’t even deserve the 7/10 status that I’ve been way too generous with handing out. It’s not good or bad enough to be relevant, there are no features, and for some reason it’s three minutes long, which is almost double the length of FINE SH*T, which leaves much more of an impression. This one really represents the worst of the mediocrity this album is plagued with. 5/10
Oh, god. This… is honestly impressive. I can’t even define this as music. This is… art. If I can get you to listen to one song in this album, don’t even consider RATHER LIE or WE NEED ALL DA VIBES. Please, for all that is good in the world, listen to OPM BABI. It is so truly, genuinely, astronomically terrible that you absolutely NEED to hear it. 11/10, it made me question why I’m still living.
How the hell did we go from OPM BABI to this? See, the funny thing about TWIN TRIM is that Carti literally isn’t even on it— pretty much. I can’t tell if it’s hilarious or depressing that the guy who made this album has less voice on one of his best songs than Swamp Izzo does with his producer tags on other songs in the same album. This is just a really great (albeit short) Uzi song where a third of the track is the intro. The length really is the biggest issue here, but I can’t really complain with a song this good. 9/10
Carti is honestly kind of annoying on this track, which is funny since he was pretty much completely absent on the last one. I’m not a huge fan of Carti’s new style in general, but with other songs I’ve managed to look past it to see the tracks for their quality, not my personal preference. With that said, this track is just doing too much. The beat gets highlighted at certain points as if it was as good as something like Magnolia or ILoveUIHateU, but it just makes me wonder why this beat was considered good enough to get attention whereas TWIN TRIM apparently couldn’t make ten seconds to do so. Not great. 5.5/10
Ehhhhh it’s okay. I feel similar with this track as I do with I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI where I admire the consistency, but I think overall it’s just pretty weak. Just feels like filler to hit the 30-song album status. 6/10
Great first impression on this one, I really love the beat here. I’m surprised nobody really talks about WALK. Like, CRUSH is in Carti’s top five most listened to songs right now and there’s no way it’s better than this. Pretty underrated pick here, give it another go if you skimmed over it on your first listen of the album. 7/10
This song was leaked to death before the album dropped, but unlike EVIL J0RDAN it remained largely the same (at least it sounds like it). I really really really like this song and I won’t elaborate on why because you’ve probably heard it a million times already and don’t need me saying what you already know. Very good junk food. 8.5/10
This one’s alright. In terms of being one of the many songs I consider to be “pretty good” on this album, this is definitely one of the better ones. It really just kind of blends in, though. Like nobody is going to tell you “yeah ‘MUSIC’ had some great songs like RATHER LIE and TWIN TRIM but my favorite was definitely OVERLY.” Again, it just feels like filler, but one of the more solid tracks with that title. 6.5/10
Finally, we’ve made it to the last track on this ungodly long album. And the verdict for SOUTH ATLANTA BABY is… pretty good. You can just tell the production for this song is much higher on this track, especially coming right after OVERLY. Not a bad closing track for this album at all, but like most of the songs here, it fails to really leave an impression. 7/10
Even after listening to the album at least four times and writing reviews that are much too in-depth for these, let’s be real here, pretty shallow songs, I still have no idea how to feel about MUSIC. I can totally get why so many fans hate this album with a burning passion, but I can also totally get why others enjoy this new style of Carti and think that the good in this album outweighs the bad.
I keep bouncing between thoughts here. On one hand, I’ve only added eight out of 30 of these songs to my playlist. On the other hand, driving with my friends late at night and hearing these songs come up really fits the atmosphere and makes them quite enjoyable. Back to the other hand, Carti had over four years to work on this album and it came out half-baked and rushed. On the other, other hand, this album has RATHER LIE on it, so can it really be that bad?
MUSIC has some great gems on it that really carry the album above true mediocrity, and the bad tracks are so terrible that they’re kind of funny, which I’ll always appreciate. If Carti cut the fat and only included the biggest hits and blunders of this album, I would be much more inclined to actually listen to the full album instead of just the best and worst of it, and give it a higher score. But as it stands, MUSIC is a perfectly decent 7/10 for me.
